April 2, 2007
This weekend, we went camping at the Colleton County State Park. I grew up camping -- probably more than being in a house. Or at least a close second. There were no air mattresses or battery operated fans. Often there wasn't even a tent. Electricity was a distant dream and water was something you had packed to drink or what you swam in in the murky lake. A tent pad was the closest and largest flat place that had occurred naturally. And toilets and showers... well, there just weren't any. Although someone had apparently missed a toilet enough to build one out of logs nearby our usual site. Fortunately, all those things were available at Colleton.
I don't really remember being uncomfortable without those things growing up but I guess age does something to a person. I seem to have begun to notice just how hard the ground is, how hot or cold it can really get outside, and particularly, the mosquitoes. Unfortunately, while we can put a man on the moon (and even some dispute that), it seems that we cannot find a way to go camping comfortably unless it involves a box on wheels (and therefore a ridiculous monthly payment for approximately two months a year's use). Take air mattresses for instance. They start out comfortably enough, a little like a waterbed, but by morning your body is shaped like a 'v' with your tail resting on the ground. Somehow, carrying a mattress and box springs out there just doesn't seem right though. Camp toilets almost invariably contain a daddy long legs or two and usually some unidentifiable odor. And well, there's just something wrong with taking a shower in your flip flops while watching your stuff on the bench outside the curtain.
But I guess comfort probably isn't the point. Getting away from all these things that we have come up with to be 'comfortable' is. And that's probably why we are already planning to go again soon, though probably somewhere a little closer. Because when there's no tv or computer or microwave, we are forced to do something truly radical. Talk.... Oh, horror of horrors!
Just kidding.
No comments:
Post a Comment